Send detainees home, says UN

Josh Gordon and Jessica Wright

AUSTRALIA'S immigration detention system is being clogged by growing numbers of rejected asylum seekers who should be sent home, the United Nations refugee agency has warned.

UNHCR regional representative Richard Towle said large numbers of people now coming through the asylum system in Australia were not refugees and ''the challenge is how to find fair and humane and effective ways of allowing them to leave this country to go home''.

The comments came as 81 asylum seekers, who were shifted from overcrowded Christmas Island to Darwin two months ago, were again moved to become the first residents of Inverbrackie detention centre, near Adelaide.

Border protection has again leapt onto the political agenda after a boat carrying about 100 asylum seekers crashed into the Christmas Island cliffs and sank on Wednesday.

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The Department of Immigration said protests staged at two Christmas Island detention centres late last week were for the benefit of the visiting media to raise concerns about ''food and airconditioning'' and whether enough had been done to rescue the passengers from the boat.

The deportation of failed asylum seekers has already been announced as central to the government's efforts to stem the flow of boats.

So far, however, only a handful of asylum seekers have been deported; the government is believed to be examining further incentives for people to return home.

Mr Towle told The Sun-Herald improved political conditions in Sri Lanka and changed methods for assessing Afghan asylum seeker cases had led to the jump in the number of rejected cases, most ''left sitting in the detention centres in Western Australia''.

He also called for greater regional co-operation and improved conditions in south-east Asia to prevent asylum seekers from making the perilous voyage from Indonesia. He said the problem had little to do with Australia's border protection policies, including a decision by Labor to scrap controversial temporary protection visas, but rather a ''protection vacuum'' throughout the region that had been forcing people to risk their lives on unseaworthy vessels.

Yesterday Mr Bowen said the group of 81 Sri Lankans, Iranian, Iraqi and Kurdish asylum seekers moved from Darwin to Adelaide had been assessed as ''low-risk''. He said it was the start of a process to house up to 400 people in a new 80-house facility in the Adelaide Hills seat of Mayo.

When the federal government announced the opening of the centre, there was widespread community concern, which boiled over several times at government consultations.